


Wildly Hunting

by valerienne (valderys)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: waymeet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-26
Updated: 2010-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-09 17:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valerienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has relatives they're ashamed of…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wildly Hunting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Waymeet's Foreyule challenge in 2005. The challenge was to write a story based on a folk custom, folktale or superstition.

It's silly really. He thought he had a life. But all this time and Billy's only just figured out that he doesn't. Is that a mark of his greater intelligence being bent on higher things, or more likely the beginnings of senility? It might be a sign he's getting older, except that he doesn't, not really. And he has to work at remembering to make it look like he does. It's why he makes sure the hair thing is pushed back a little every year. It's a good thing to remember the years with something concrete - oh yes, it's Yule, about time, uncover a little more flesh. Like an anniversary.

Except it's not real and Billy should have remembered that.

He stares at the trows on his doorstep, giggling and shifting, and picking their noses, and wonders, was he ever like that? Was he? And that's just downright embarrassing; no wonder he ran away to drama school, and then to the theatre, and then to New Zealand. It's a magical place anyway, working in the Business, so what does a dodgy tale or two or a fishy background matter between friends? He sighs and invites them in – not because he has to, that's vampires, and only in the movies at that – but because his neighbours might complain that there's a biker gang come to hang around his hallway, given the amount of black leather, and shiny gewgaws. Although none of them are iron as Billy very well knows. Anyway, they'll make a terrible mess of his front step, if he doesn't.

He wonders how they finally tracked him down.

***

And it could be worse, Billy thinks. It could be worse. They went through his fridge like Elijah on a porn and chocolate binge, and there's milk spilt on the counter top – they've always been partial to a drop or two of milk, as Billy himself still is – and there are Thai chilli crisps trodden into the living room carpet, but it could be worse. Attention span – that's always been their trouble, always. Billy's had to fight it too, over the years. He sleeps mostly when he doesn't think he can concentrate for one second longer. Or pretends to, at any rate. It's an acquired knack, but he doesn't think that trying to explain _that _to the Family would help his case. Actually, their lack of attention might even save him, because it's not like they've really missed him all these years. Not properly. He's not even sure trows are capable of missing anyone. Except that's patently not true either, and Billy wonders when he got so good at lying to himself. Or is he just the exception that proves the rule?

So. Anyway. They might not even remember to come back, and then Billy can get on with his nice normal life, and his nice not-so-normal job, and let his fucked up Family just go back to wherever they blew in from, and that will be just fine, thanks very much. Except. That's when he hears it.

His hands still on the counter top, where he's been wiping up the spilt milk. And then he feels like crying, although it's no use, just like the saying, and then he's pissed off for feeling so girly and shite, and then he's just fucking angry for being put in this position in the first place. He hates it. He just hates it.

There's a growl, followed by a slither of fur and flesh, and a shape slinks round the corner and stares at him. Billy stares back and thinks. Could have sworn the Gabble Retchets used to be bigger. Wonders, a bit hysterically, whether that's an effect of human lack of belief, or just an unbelievably naff type of disguise. Wonders why he's even wondering, and then holds out his hand for the Gabriel hound to sniff.

It stalks forward delicately and Billy squints down. He supposes it is at least a creamy white, and the ears are sort of rusty, although they are hardly the frost white coat and blood-red ears of his memory. Maybe at home things have changed more than he thinks. It – no _he_, Billy can see distinctive maleness – sniffs the politely extended hand and then yawns widely and sits down, wagging his tail. Perhaps Billy should just count his blessings, since it will certainly make him easier to explain.

But since when did any of the hounds choose to look like a smallish springer spaniel?

***

"So, you got a dog then, Bill?" says Dom, as he breezes in and pats Griffin, who looks like he ought to object to the stranger, except that the ticklish spot he can't quite reach is being petted expertly, and the bliss is too much, even for a spectral hound of hell.

"Wasn't Alli enough for you?" Dom adds slyly, and then immediately starts wandering through the flat as though he hasn't seen it before, which of course, is patent nonsense, and completely useless at distracting Billy from the not so subtle dig. Except that Billy is too tired, and too keyed up to fight it. It's not like he hasn't been getting jibes like that from Dom for _years_.

"Alli's allergic," he offers, and wonders if he sounds as acerbic as he feels.

"So am I, Bills, so am I," says Dom, popping his head back into the room. Griffin walks up to him and experimentally tugs at his jeans. Billy has a sudden ridiculous urge to tell the stupid creature that it doesn't work. He'd have seen Dom naked a lot more often over the years, if that was the case… And where did random naked Dom thoughts come from anyway? Billy must be more tired than he thought, more on that edge, less _human_.

"Alli left me, Dom," he says, more spitefully than perhaps he meant to, and oh shite, is that his more essential nature beginning to claw it's way out? Already? It's only been a few weeks. Enough time for him and his girl (ex-girl) to have more than enough arguments about why he got a damn dog without consulting her, and then the tears, and the recriminations, followed by the storming out in a whirl of sneezing.

But the statement is more than enough to have Dom come walking back into the living room making his sad face. And that makes Billy's chest feel all funny, like it felt immediately after Alli had walked out, except that he doesn't want to think about that now. Dom waves his packet of anti-histamines, and does that lop-sided crooked grin that Billy will never forget, however long Dom stays in America, and then he squeezes Billy shoulder in a manly way, as Griffin sniffs his shoes.

"I won't leave you, you git. But I'm sorry."

And Billy is too, except with Dom's hand on his arm, he's not so sure of that.

***

The trouble is, thinks Billy. The trouble is that it's Yule. That's why Dom's visiting. And Elijah was meant to come, except that there's been a minor family crisis and he's bailed on them, with good and understandable reason, except for the fact that Billy is now alone in his flat with Dom, and not a whole lot else to think about. Although there is still Griffin.

But that just makes it worse. The Family aren't going to forget about him, not now, not in this season, when spirits are allowed to walk the earth unfettered, and indeed chug a nice glass or two of Glenfiddich, if they've got a mind to. And as long as Griffin is still here, they won't forget, they'll come calling. They'll drag Billy back, into all the blood, and the wildness, and the limitless freedom unmarred by conscience, and he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to _go_.

There was more than one reason why he ran away.

He wishes he'd had time to put Dom off coming. Wishes that Dom could have stayed safe and warm in his tropical paradise, feeding his chameleons – except that the Menehunes can be right little bastards themselves, so who is Billy to say that he would have been any safer there? And he wants to see Dom. He does. Too much sometimes, Billy thinks. Because it's not like things have changed between them, despite Alli, despite Griffin and all he means. Things will remain the same. And that seems as ageless and eternal to Billy as his Family, and as sad somehow.

***

"So, a carol concert, yeah?" says Dom, stretching a little, as he bounces on the balls of his feet.

The day has been bright – for Glasgow anyway – but it's still cold, and Dom is wrapped up in about fifteen different layers, his blond hair sticking up from the front of a woolly hat Billy has been sent by a fan, because Billy had taken one look at Dom's baseball cap and shaken his head. Dom would have frozen if he'd worn that, frozen and got beaten up, probably, in the wrong part of town, but the woolly hat gives him a chance. They'll be too busy laughing to give chase. Billy earnt a smack upside the head for that, but it had been worth it, and Dom is unrecognisable to the casual eye, which was another part of the point. Billy also hopes he hasn't noticed the tiny charm bag Billy has secured inside the pointy part of the cap, where the bobble pulls it down a little to one side. He hopes that'll be enough to distract any trows that come sniffing around. Make Dom smell bad. Not tasty, and young, and with that indefinable something that pulled Billy to him in the first place. Hopes it, but without much conviction, it's been a long time since he's had to do any magic. He's way past rusty.

"It's traditional - carols, a nice church, midnight mass, all that," Billy says, hopefully, watching Dom wrinkle his nose up and clap his gloved hands together with a soft thumping sound.

It's beginning to get dark, and Billy's getting anxious. Trows will be out on a night like this, cloud starting to lower over the horizon, the wind picking up. Dom's nose is pink with cold, and Billy hates to think what he looks like, bright purple probably, his thin skin blotchy and mottled. Like something the cat dragged in. Or the dog, he thinks, looking at Griffin on his lead.

"Yeah, all right," says Dom, sniffing a little and tugging one of his many scarves a little tighter. "What about this one? We can have hot soup while we listen. Lovely."

And he's handing Billy a leaflet for Carols in the Park, and he's walking off, swinging his arms, leaving Billy stuttering a little, about how that isn't what he meant, and what about a nice cathedral or something? But Dom pretends not to hear, and hums 'God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen' as loud as he can, until Billy can't take it, since there's a reason why Billy is the singing hobbit, and not Dom.

Nothing left to do but follow Dom through the crowded Glasgow Streets, because he's a stubborn bastard, as stubborn as Billy can be; after all, it's another reason Billy loves him. And then he's aghast at that, at even admitting that in his mind, it's like an omen or something, and Billy hates those. He's spent years reminding himself that every leaf that falls is just that, a leaf. Spent years eyeing black cats to see if they walk funny. Spent years watching Dom walk on the cracks in the pavement and not jumping on him, or shouting at him for being so damn careless…

Spent years with Dom. And that makes his heart ache in an altogether more unpleasant way than when Alli walked out. He doesn't want this friendship fucked up. He doesn't want _Dom_ fucked up, by the Family, by the untrammelled freedom trows get, but mortals really don't. Because he wonders if Dom would like that. Would like to pull up a stalk of dock, and blow it into a fine white steed. It might appeal to Dom, it might tempt him, and Billy doesn't know how he'd explain the blood, and the death, and the way a stalk of dock becomes just that in the cold light of day. No more, no less, and glamourie is as real as thistledown on the wind, as a dead quarry under a dewy sky.

***

"Here," says Dom, and hands him a baked potato in foil.

It's hot, which is the point, but it doesn't stop him swearing and nearly dropping it. Billy doesn't have gloves, an oversight or a plan, Billy isn't sure which yet. The butter runs warm and greasy into his palm, and it smells bloody gorgeous. His stomach rumbles. It makes him look up before he realises it's him, not the weather, although the sky feels like it could fall any minute and the wind's picked up even more.

Dom has fallen quiet, which is unusual enough, and Billy reckons it's the cold. Dom's got thin-skinned living in LA and then Hawaii, and he's too fucking stubborn to admit that a nice church would have been warmer. Billy wishes they were in a church now, not here in Glasgow Green – the Family wouldn't be able to enter a church, that much is right about the legends. It would have been uncomfortable for Billy too, but he's got used to it over the years. It's a bit like enduring an allergy for the greater good, like Dom with his Lothlórien cloak, only without a good mate or two to whip it from your back when you're done. Can't tell Dom why he sneezes in churches. Can't tell Dom anything. Here, Dom, let me tell you about my Family…

The potato is gorgeous. The butter melts into him, warming something he didn't know was cold. Dom is jumping a little, ostensibly to see the carollers, but really to keep his blood moving. The sound of the choir rises up into the billowing night like the smoke of a lazy fire. No smoke without flame, thinks Billy, and shivers. He reaches out blindly and pulls Dom to him, wrapping him in a sudden embrace, careless of buttery fingerprints. It's protective and tender, but it's also a warning. Sod it. Bugger caution, the Family can… Dom sighs, a startlingly hot exhalation on Billy's cheek, and Billy doesn't dare look. He knows Dom is looking at him, leaning his head back, a mere inch or two separating them, as it has for years. But nothing ever changes, and Billy will remain everything he is forever, and Dom is all about change, all the time.

The choir completes a soaring movement, a stylised version of 'In the Bleak Midwinter', Billy thinks, but the descant's all wrong for the hymn, and he isn't just saying that because it makes his skin prickle, and his sinuses block. The wind swirls around, blowing skeletal leaves against the hem of their jackets. Dom twitches, an abortive shiver, and then pushes himself away. Abrupt, sudden, his movements uncoordinated and sharp. The grin he shows Billy glitters cruelly in the orange streetlights, and then he's pushing through the crowd, heading for the front, and he's pulling off the woollen cap as he goes.

It's inevitable, thinks Billy. Of course. Griffin growls a little and tugs, wanting to follow Dom. Wanting to _hunt_ Dom, Billy knows, and he closes his eyes.

There is laughter. It doesn't even surprise him. He looks up and the trees above his head are thick with trows, shadows among shadows, whispering and pinching each other. They've always been there, Billy thinks. Listening to the crowds, watching him, and watching Dom. It's an old amusement. How ancient is this park? Twelfth century?

He moves until his back is against the nearest trunk, a solid weight, but he's still surrounded and pressed in on every other side. He's pulled up the tree, with an easy illusion, sly hands probing, a flash of silver reflecting in the dark. One of them passes him a bottle and he swigs, coughing over the sudden sharpness of the cheap vodka. So much for the sweetened mead of yester-year. No class. If they ever had any. The glee in the air makes him sick, and he listens to the whispers, the anticipation, with a numbness that might border on despair if he let himself think about it at all.

He can hear howling in the wind. The Hunt is preparing, the Gabriel hounds are in good voice. If there was more light Billy would be able to see the flash of mane and tail in the clouds above. Griffin is whining, but his note is deepening. Billy wonders how long it will be before the lead goes slack.

The Family leans in, they pull out his shirt, they giggle and whisper and lick butter off his palms. Billy watches as they begin to thread through the crowd. They won't be seen, they never are, but wallets will be missing tomorrow, and a handful of leaves will scatter instead from a trouser pocket. An acorn will fall out of a never-opened purse. He holds his breath. He has spotted Dom.

The trow nuzzle him, as they see him realise. Their pinches grow into caresses, and a tongue, too warm to be human, insinuates itself into his mouth, down his neck, into his ear. It's like kissing smoke. Bitter, but barely there.

Billy sees them surround Dom, pushing against him, until he hunches a little and leans back, without even noticing. Billy wants to cry out. To explain about the charm. To explain why his magic has always been weak, and growing weaker, because he doesn't want this, he's never wanted this. Wishes for a desolate moment that he was _better_, that he could protect Dom. Wishes…

Involuntarily, his hands reach forward, and are caught by the others. His thumb is drawn into a red-hot mouth and there is a glint of teeth, pressing needle-sharp into his skin. He stares as they dance around Dom, who smells delicious, of course. Of bread, and milk, and warm mortality. Of the salt sea and red blood beating. He's always smelled of everything that was never home to Billy. He watches them as they distract Dom, a movement from the corner of his eye, a shining star tossed into the air, an insect that scuttles but can never be caught. He watches them take a hank of fleece, raw sheep's wool, greasy with lanolin, and brush it over Dom. Delicately stroking his nose, his lips, his reddened cheeks. Watches knowing what will happen, the knowing a hollow within him, a cold stone sitting in his chest.

They tease, his Family. They're very good at that. He'd almost forgotten. And in a moment Dom is going to sneeze. His allergies. And in a busy crowd listening to a carol concert, who will say the blessing? Who, these days, even believes in such a thing? Certainly not Dom. And Billy has always laughed and avoided conversation about religion, avoided it all, and certainly never blessed anyone, for anything – why would he? He knows what will happen.

His heart squeezes. He loves his life. The grey mornings, and the mundane afternoons; making proper Thai food over long slow hours, hoovering his flat. Even without Alli, even with a Gabriel hound sleeping at the foot of his bed. Even then, he loves his life.

But he loves Dom more.

He watches it happen. He sees Dom wrinkle his nose, he sees him breath in, and then there it is. A little explosive exhalation, a tiny noise, not enough to disturb even the nearest people. He watches the trows grin, all sharp teeth shining in the light. They reach forward, graceful fingers crooked with eagerness, and…

He has to. He must. Oh, fuck, but he'll miss this world.

"Bless you," he bellows in a cracking voice, over the heads of the crowd.

There is a wailing, that can almost be heard, and the wind swirls, and tugs. The Family are staring at him as they are swept up. White horses rear and show their heels, and Billy feels it, feels the Wild Hunt reaching into his chest, and _pulling_, dragging him into the sky, clawing him apart. It's like he's being torn in two. The lead goes slack in his hand.

But the wind drops. The pure treble notes of the boy soloist spiral into the air like drops of silver, and Billy is still here. He hasn't been taken. He's alone, his breath pounding in his chest. But he's still here. He's not been banished with the Family. He'd never thought he could endure one, never mind expect one. But. It seems there's been a miracle.

***

"What the fuck are you doing in a tree, Bills?" asks Dom.

And Billy doesn't know how to answer him. He's not far up – only a few feet from the ground really, and as he slithers down, he manages to avoid snagging his coat on the rough bark. It skins his hands a little though, and Billy stares at them, at the scrapes, with their sharp sting of pain, and when he finally stands, his legs are trembling unaccountably. On a whim, he draws one hand to his mouth, and licks, the metalsaltliving taste exploding on his tongue and making him shiver. It's so strange.

There's a commotion behind him, a Dom-shaped explosion, caroming into him, nearly shoving him into the tree, leaning over his shoulder, and looking at Billy's hands too.

"You wanker – what've you done to yourself? We haven't even been drinking!"

Dom sniffs a little, his nose almost violet, and his breath is warm but not burning on Billy's cheek, not the furnace heat Billy is used to. That seems odd as well. Billy smells butter, and tomato soup, gusting lightly onto his face. Comforting human smells. And he realises his own hands are cold. Bloody cold. More cold than Billy's ever been before. He shivers again, for another reason, an ordinary reason, like the fact it's frosty in the park, and then he's laughing. A silly giggle chasing itself into his throat, followed by another one, and yet another. He's laughing, and Dom is smiling at him, smiling in confusion, at his daft wee friend, and Billy loves him, he loves everything now, he loves so much…

It's the easiest thing in the world to turn his head and kiss Dom. He's wanted to for so bloody long.

And it's better than he'd ever imagined. The taste, and the slipslide of his lips as they almost miss, and Dom's cold nose brushing his cheek, and the little gasp that draws a tiny breath of air across Billy's mouth, warming and cooling it all at the same time.

It's so ordinary, and yet so extraordinary, that Billy begins to laugh again, because he can, because their noses bumped, and because it's real, so very real. No glamour, no magic, all his own pitiful efforts. Dom jumps a little when Billy turns round and pulls the woolly hat out of his hand, and puts it on, and stands grinning manically, grasping Dom's arms.

He watches Dom, even as the joy bubbles inside him. He watches Dom's mouth quirk, sees him turn from solemn and confused, to happy and confused. Watches his eyes widen, and his mouth part, as Billy leans in again deliberately, crowding Dom, but slowly, giving him plenty of time to break away.

Surely he's not been wrong. Surely all those pointed comments over the years meant something, and the constant touching. The staring. Surely he's not been wrong.

Dom makes a sound this time, as their lips meet. A soft kind of sound, and Billy feels his heart beating, pounding away in his chest, like it's going to break, or burst. And that's a tongue now, in his mouth. A tongue. Oh, he knew he wasn't wrong. And Billy breaks their second kiss to laugh some more, and watch Dom's lips shine in the fairy lights that twinkle from the tree above them.

Fairy lights, how appropriate.

And Dom looks bowled over, like he doesn't know what to do with himself, and that's a rare thing. So rare that Billy laughs some more, and then he takes Dom by the hand and pulls him into an embrace, and they stand there like that. As they have hundreds of times, and yet this is the first time too.

***

So. It's silly really. He thought he didn't have a life. And all the time he could have had this one. All the time he could have discovered that this life was his all along. That William Boyd was a changeling. All along.

When he talked to Margaret, afterwards, she wrinkled her nose and put her head on one side and snorted. But that's Maggie for you. Practical. To the point. Billy has decided he doesn't want to know which memories are his own, and which might have been blown into his head like dandelion seeds. He doesn't like to think about his memories of the Other Place either, they're tinged with blood, and darkness, but they're home too, in a strange sort of way. They make him who he is.

He looks in the mirror now, and stares at his receding hairline in trepidation. It's all his own work, not an illusion anymore. He's not sure how to feel about that. He's a mere mortal. A completely ordinary mortal. But he often finds he can't stop smiling.

And there's Dom to help with that now. Not that he wasn't there before. But. It's different these days. Billy spends as much time in Hawaii as he does in Glasgow, because he can. Now. And the little bastard Menehunes sniff about but Billy can still stare them down. That much seems to be left to him. He's from a wild place, a cold place, and he's been on more hunts than they've had fish dinners. Or so his stare says.

And the weird thing? The really weird thing, after everything? Is they still have a pet dog. Like a real family. Griffin still looks like a springer spaniel, and Dom takes his antihistamines, and Billy can't understand it. Billy didn't expect to see any of the Family again, and it's no loss. But Griffin was brought back out of the blue by an irate neighbour, after destroying many, many dustbins. He had a sheepish look in his eye, thinks Billy, but he was unrepentant. And that's something Billy can sympathise with.

And why does Billy let a Gabble Retchet stay in his home? Even though he's a mortal now, and as vulnerable as the next person? As vulnerable as any prey? Billy often smiles at Griffin, showing all his teeth, and Griffin smiles back, tongue lolling out of his mouth, before rolling onto his back to have his tummy tickled. Billy lets him stay because he knows they understand one another - and the excitement of the hunt never completely goes away. Griffin reminds Billy of home, even after everything. And home isn't a bad thing, he's decided. Not when you have a choice. Not a bad thing at all.

But he always leaves out a saucer of milk, these days. He'll always do that.

_Just_ in case.


End file.
